 |
Post Office Box 1147
▪
Marblehead, Massachusetts 01945
▪ (781) 639-9709
“Every Tax is a Pay Cut ... A Tax Cut is a Pay Raise”
47 years as “The Voice of Massachusetts Taxpayers”
— and
their Institutional Memory — |
|
CLT UPDATE
Sunday, August 15, 2021
Theirs is theirs and
yours is too
Jump directly
to CLT's Commentary on the News
|
Most Relevant News
Excerpts
(Full news reports follow Commentary)
|
|
So, Democrats are the
heartless skinflints and Republicans the bleeding
hearts?
That seems to be the
case in Massachusetts, if you read into the latest
House rejection of the charitable donation
deduction.
More than two decades
after voters approved that tax break, state reps
sustained their previous decision to postpone that
option by overriding Gov. Charlie Baker’s veto....
Through mid-June, the
Department of Revenue had collected at least $34.457
billion — $5.367 billion more than the Baker
administration’s most recent estimate for the full
12-month fiscal year and $3.3 billion more than the
prepandemic estimate of $31.15 billion in tax
revenue for fiscal 2021.
That’s on top of more
than $5 billion in American Rescue Plan Act funds
the state’s sitting on.
That trend has
continued in the new fiscal year. July’s tax
receipts totaled more than $2.25 billion, beating
last July’s haul by 5%.
“Yes, the revenue
picture is rosy, but it’s not certain. It doesn’t
mean no, just not now,” warned Rep. Mark Cusack, a
Braintree Democrat and House chair of the Committee
on Revenue.
With the House vote,
the Legislature approved delaying the tax-deduction
implementation until Jan. 1, 2023.
Worth an estimated $64
million in the current budget and $300 million
annually, Baker vetoed delaying the deduction by
insisting “the combination of strong state revenues
and serious needs facing nonprofits and charitable
organizations necessitates this tax deduction’s
going into place.”
All 30 Republicans —
plus four Democrats and the House’s only independent
— sided with the governor, while 124 members of the
majority party voted to override the veto....
Since its passage by
72% of voters in 2000, taxpayers have only been able
to take advantage of the charitable tax deduction
once.
That’s how it will
remain — until at least 2023.
A Lowell
Sun editorial
Monday, August 9, 2021
With eye on $2B prize, Dems write
off needy charities
Beacon Hill just put on
full display what happens when it is awash in money.
On its face, House Bill
2808, otherwise called “An Act relative to providing
a COVID-19 retirement credit to essential public
workers,” sounds reasonable. It calls for adding
three years of additional retirement credit to state
“employees who have volunteered to work or have been
required to work at their respective worksites or
any other worksite outside of their personal
residences during the COVID-19 state of emergency…”
But upon reading the
brief bill, it quickly becomes clear that this
legislation is irresponsible in the extreme.
Written so broadly,
which public employees aren’t entitled to the
benefit? ...
Administrators,
accountants, techies, teachers, finance officers,
grant writers, trash collectors and all those paid
with public dollars are potentially in line for the
benefit. As currently written, state legislators are
eligible to take advantage of the bill. More than
half of the Legislature has signed on to H.2808.
Support spans the political spectrum. The bill may
provide a jump in pension benefits for those
employed during the pandemic who have already
retired....
How much will it cost?
At a recent hearing
before the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Public
Service, the committee’s co-chair, Rep. Ken Gordon,
asked H.2808’s House sponsor, Rep. Jonathan Zlotnick
of Gardner, whether any analysis had been done on
the bill’s fiscal impact. Astonishingly, Zlotnick
responded: “The short answer is we don’t have a
final number as we sit here today.” ...
Pioneer estimates that
the bill’s cost would be in the billions of dollars.
As of this May, the state pension fund, state
Teachers’ Retirement System and the Boston Teachers
Retirement system were underfunded by a combined $44
billion. Annual payments to the systems are
scheduled to rise from the current $3.1 billion to
nearly $12.4 billion over the next 15 years, and
would be even higher under H.2808. The bill would
also further burden over 100 local pension funds in
the Commonwealth, many of which are already woefully
underfunded.
What’s next?
The Commonwealth is
currently sitting on nearly $10 billion in state
surplus and federal COVID relief money. Few would
object to using some of that money to benefit state
employees who truly put themselves in harm’s way
during the pandemic.
The Legislature should
demonstrate responsibility and use part of the money
to shore up pension funds so the state can fully
cover existing commitments to its employees, and pay
down what is the highest per capita debt of any
state. Such debt reduction could free up hundreds of
millions of the over $3.5 billion Massachusetts
currently spends each year for debt service....
H.2808 ... is absurdly
overbroad and solely focused on the public sector.
Remember that the public sector did not see
employment decrease in any manner similar to the
private sector during the pandemic. As such, it is a
slap in the face of the tens of thousands of private
sector employees who put themselves in harm’s way —
or often saw their lives turned upside down by
government restrictions, some of which were
reasonable, others of which were not at all based in
science.
H.2808 is also an
abject lesson to taxpayers: This is what happens
when the Legislature has access to billions of
dollars in excess tax revenue and emergency funds.
Pioneer
Institute
Monday, July 26, 2021
Public Statement on the MA
Legislature’s Blanket Pension Giveaway
"State House staff
salaries are a joke," one legislative staffer wrote
in response to an anonymous survey this spring.
"When I left the
private sector, I knew that I would be paid less
than at my previous job," another said. "What I did
not realize is that as a college educated human, I
would be struggling to pay my bills working for the
state."
Motivated in large part
by those
survey results that the Beacon B.L.O.C. [Black
State House staffers and allies] group published in
May, a pair of lawmakers submitted a new package of
legislation aimed at improving pay and work
conditions for the hundreds of aides in House and
Senate offices.
Legislative leaders
this spring awarded staff raises and one-time
work-from-home stipends, but Rep. Erika Uyterhoeven
and Sen. Diana DiZoglio said their colleagues need
to take more substantial action to address concerns
that leave many staffers anxious about their
futures.
"The Legislature
constantly talks about diversity, equity and
inclusion while at the same time maintaining
policies within its own institution that block those
from low-income backgrounds and communities of color
in particular from being able to gain access,"
DiZoglio, a Methuen Democrat, said in an interview.
DiZoglio, who helped
facilitate the voluntary staff survey and shared the
responses with the News Service, and Uyterhoeven
filed five bills last week that would set a pay
floor for legislative aides, require regular raises,
accelerate staff access to health insurance and
create new liaisons to represent the workforce.
The first bill in the
package (HD 4386) would set a minimum salary of
$55,000 for full-time House, Senate and joint
legislative employees, increase other salary tiers
accordingly, and require annual pay raises scaled to
the increase in the statewide median household
income.
They also called for
providing legislative staffers with yearly
cost-of-living adjustments (HD 4388) and offering
retroactive bonuses to offset costs incurred during
the pandemic (HD 4387)....
In May, shortly after
Beacon B.L.O.C. released its survey results, House
Speaker Ronald Mariano and Senate President Karen
Spilka announced that staff that month had been
informed of 6 percent raises and one-time stipends
of $500 to cover work-from-home costs....
The proposed $55,000
floor would land substantially above Boston's median
annual per-capita income of $44,690, which the U.S.
Census Bureau estimated based on data between 2015
and 2019....
The final piece of
their proposal (HD 4390) would create a new position
in each branch to serve as a representative of
legislative staffers in employment matters....
Uyterhoeven said the
measure would be a "step in the right direction"
toward unionizing State House staffers, which she
supports but is not covered in the legislation.
State
House News Service
Wednesday, August 11, 2021
New Bill Would Set $55,000 Wage
Floor For Legislative Staff
Opponents of a regional
climate pact are pushing a question for next year’s
ballot that would undermine the program, which they
say will drive up fuel prices.
A proposed question
filed for review by the attorney general's office
last Wednesday asks voters to choke off a source of
funds for the cap-and-trade program, effectively
blocking the state’s participation in the
Transportation Climate Initiative.
The referendum calls
for updating state law to declare that gas and other
fuel supplies "will not be reduced or restricted by
the imposition of any tax, fee, other revenue
generating mechanism, or market based compliance
mechanism."
Paul Craney, a
spokesman for the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance,
said the pro-business group co-founded by
billionaire Rick Green supports the effort because,
the group believes, the climate pact will "force
working families and middle-class Massachusetts to
subsidize electric vehicles for the affluent."
"The people that will
feel the pinch deserve a voice in this process,"
Craney said. "Consumers should be free to make their
own decisions, and TCI should never restrict the
amount of gasoline Massachusetts motorists can
purchase. It’s bad economics and cruel." ...
So far, only
Massachusetts and two other states — Rhode Island
and Connecticut — have signed a "memorandum of
understanding" to join the program, though lawmakers
in Connecticut and Rhode Island still must sign off.
The Baker
administration says Massachusetts’ 2008 Global
Warming Solutions Act gives the governor authority
to ratify the agreement without the Legislature.
The Salem
News
Tuesday, August 10, 2021
Climate pact opponents push for
2022 ballot
. . . Some ballot bids
seem unnecessary, like the proposed ballot question
submitted by the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance that
would rescind the Transportation and Climate
Initiative, a pact signed in 2020 by the governors
of three New England states — Massachusetts,
Connecticut and Rhode Island — and the mayor of
Washington, D.C., aimed at reducing transportation
pollution by taxing its source.
Promoted as a measure
with wide regional support, that enthusiasm waned
over time, from the 12 states supposedly ready to
join that compact to the paltry three – and D.C. –
that ultimately did.
Better to let it just
die a flawed policy death.
A Lowell
Sun editorial
Sunday, August 8, 2021
Can you ID what questions will make
2022 ballot?
Republican
gubernatorial candidate Geoff Diehl continues to
take the fight to Gov. Charles Baker, who hasn't
said yet if he'll seek a third term.
In a new campaign
missive, Diehl on Wednesday highlighted his
differences with the Republican governor on the
Transportation Climate Initiative, an effort led by
Baker to create a regional compact of states that
would cap harmful transportation emissions but also
lead to an increase in gas prices.
"TCI may be sold to you
by the Administration as a 'fee' to energy retailers
but is nothing more than another TAX on the people,"
Diehl wrote. "Commuting costs will increase, food
and goods that need to be transported will go up,
and even your property taxes will reflect the
increased cost to municipalities for the fleets they
operate – Police cars, fire trucks and ambulances
and school buses."
Diehl highlighted his
support for a potential 2022 ballot question that
seeks to torpedo the still-developing multi-state
compact.
State
House News Service
Wednesday, August 11, 2021
Diehl: Emissions Pact Just “Another
TAX On The People”
The Massachusetts
Fiscal Alliance on Friday asked state and federal
regulators to investigate Environmental League of
Massachusetts social media advertisements in support
of municipal candidates, filing a new complaint
after the state Office of Campaign and Political
Finance previously found the environmental group's
ads complied with state law.
MassFiscal, a
right-leaning group, submitted letters to OCPF and
to the Internal Revenue Service alleging that ELM
violated political spending restrictions by
delivering Facebook advertisements, paid for by
ELM's Action Fund Independent Expenditure Political
Action Committee, through the Facebook page for
ELM's main 501(c)(3) non-profit organization....
"Campaign finance and
charitable IRS rules should be followed, even by
ELM. When you have the assets of a charitable
organization being used for such overt election
activities, it essentially amounts to taxpayers
subsidizing their election message," MassFiscal
spokesperson Paul Craney said in a statement. "For
these five municipal elections, none of the election
expenses were disclosed. The rules exist for a
reason and should be strictly followed by all."
State
House News Service
Friday, August 13, 2021
Mass. Fiscal Concerned About
Enviro. League Campaign Ads
The U.S. Census
Bureau's Thursday release of data from its 2020
count tracked a 7.4 percent population increase in
both Massachusetts and the country as a whole over
the decade. Galvin, the state's Census overseer,
said dramatic growth in cities and other changes
means significant adjustments lie ahead for
Congressional and state legislative districts.
The exact shapes and
boundaries of those districts will be left in the
hands of lawmakers, but uneven growth points to the
possibility of larger districts out west, where
Berkshire and Franklin counties lost residents, and
more compact or shifted districts in the eastern
part of the state, where large cities got bigger.
Boston, Galvin
forecast, could gain another seat in the state House
of Representatives.
State
House News Service
Friday, August 13, 2021
Weekly Roundup - There’s More Of
Us
Vacationing legislators
next week can spend time checking their emails and
mulling potential changes to their district
boundaries now that 2020 Census data is in.
The summer recess is in
full swing and Massachusetts is hurtling in the
direction of full employment, with historic cash
surpluses stemming from unbudgeted tax revenues and
the showering of federal aid upon the state. The
state's falling jobless rate sits at 4.9 percent
with an update scheduled for Friday, and billions
more may be coming from Washington if the U.S. House
follows the Senate's lead and approves a $1.2
trillion infrastructure bill.
Despite the relative
riches, the Legislature broke for August without
voting on Gov. Charlie Baker's proposed two-month
sales tax holiday, and taxpayers instead will settle
for this weekend's two-day suspension of the 6.25
percent sales tax.
"The Governor
understands that our state is sitting on a lot of
money, and that putting some of those dollars back
into discretionary spending by our consumers and
taxpayers, rather than leaving all the spending
decisions to Beacon Hill, will lead to better
results for our economic recovery," Retailers
Association of Massachusetts President Jon Hurst
said on Friday. "If not now, perhaps later this year
for a taxpayer break? And perhaps there are other
ideas we should discuss to reward our taxpayers, and
incent our consumers to invest back in our local
economy."
State
House News Service
Friday, August 13, 2021
Advances - Week of Aug. 15, 2021
|
|
Monday's
Lowell Sun editorial ("With eye on
$2B prize, Dems write off needy charities") noted:
So, Democrats are
the heartless skinflints and Republicans the bleeding hearts?
That seems to
be the case in Massachusetts, if you read into the latest House
rejection of the charitable donation deduction.
More than two
decades after voters approved that tax break, state reps
sustained their previous decision to postpone that option by
overriding Gov. Charlie Baker’s veto....
Through
mid-June, the Department of Revenue had collected at least
$34.457 billion — $5.367 billion more than the Baker
administration’s most recent estimate for the full 12-month
fiscal year and $3.3 billion more than the prepandemic estimate
of $31.15 billion in tax revenue for fiscal 2021.
That’s on top
of more than $5 billion in American Rescue Plan Act funds the
state’s sitting on.
That trend has
continued in the new fiscal year. July’s tax receipts totaled
more than $2.25 billion, beating last July’s haul by 5%.
“Yes, the
revenue picture is rosy, but it’s not certain. It doesn’t mean
no, just not now,” warned Rep. Mark Cusack, a Braintree Democrat
and House chair of the Committee on Revenue.
With the House
vote, the Legislature approved delaying the tax-deduction
implementation until Jan. 1, 2023.
Worth an
estimated $64 million in the current budget and $300 million
annually, Baker vetoed delaying the deduction by insisting “the
combination of strong state revenues and serious needs facing
nonprofits and charitable organizations necessitates this tax
deduction’s going into place.”
All 30
Republicans — plus four Democrats and the House’s only
independent — sided with the governor, while 124 members of the
majority party voted to override the veto....
Since its
passage by 72% of voters in 2000, taxpayers have only been able
to take advantage of the charitable tax deduction once.
That’s how it
will remain — until at least 2023.
On the same day Pioneer Institute
issued its own editorial ("Public Statement on
the MA Legislature’s Blanket Pension Giveaway"):
Beacon Hill just put on full display
what happens when it is awash in money.
On its face, House Bill 2808, otherwise
called “An Act relative to providing a COVID-19 retirement credit to
essential public workers,” sounds reasonable. It calls for adding
three years of additional retirement credit to state “employees who
have volunteered to work or have been required to work at their
respective worksites or any other worksite outside of their personal
residences during the COVID-19 state of emergency…”
But upon reading the brief bill, it
quickly becomes clear that this legislation is irresponsible in the
extreme.
Written so broadly, which public
employees aren’t entitled to the benefit? ...
At a recent hearing before the
Legislature’s Joint Committee on Public Service, the committee’s
co-chair, Rep. Ken Gordon, asked H.2808’s House sponsor, Rep.
Jonathan Zlotnick of Gardner, whether any analysis had been done on
the bill’s fiscal impact. Astonishingly, Zlotnick responded: “The
short answer is we don’t have a final number as we sit here today.”
...
Pioneer estimates that the bill’s cost
would be in the billions of dollars. As of this May, the state
pension fund, state Teachers’ Retirement System and the Boston
Teachers Retirement system were underfunded by a combined $44
billion. Annual payments to the systems are scheduled to rise from
the current $3.1 billion to nearly $12.4 billion over the next 15
years, and would be even higher under H.2808. The bill would also
further burden over 100 local pension funds in the Commonwealth,
many of which are already woefully underfunded....
The Legislature should demonstrate
responsibility and use part of the money to shore up pension funds
so the state can fully cover existing commitments to its employees,
and pay down what is the highest per capita debt of any state. Such
debt reduction could free up hundreds of millions of the over $3.5
billion Massachusetts currently spends each year for debt
service....
H.2808 ... is absurdly overbroad and
solely focused on the public sector. Remember that the public sector
did not see employment decrease in any manner similar to the private
sector during the pandemic. As such, it is a slap in the face of the
tens of thousands of private sector employees who put themselves in
harm’s way — or often saw their lives turned upside down by
government restrictions, some of which were reasonable, others of
which were not at all based in science.
H.2808 is also an abject lesson to
taxpayers: This is what happens when the Legislature has access
to billions of dollars in excess tax revenue and emergency funds.
"This is what happens when the
Legislature has access to billions of dollars in excess tax revenue
and emergency funds."
But shamelessly jacking up government
employee pensions (including legislators' pensions) was only the
beginning.
On Wednesday the State House News
Service reported on the next shameless money grab at taxpayers' expense ("New Bill Would Set $55,000 Wage Floor
For Legislative Staff") — for state
employees who demand a share of the obscene revenue bonanza.
Not a single one of them was dragooned into service against their
will, not one was forced into laboring as a "public servant."
Government conscription and involuntary servitude, "The Draft,"
ended in 1973 (with its $200/month salaries). These public employees freely chose to seek and
obtain their jobs at the salary and with the benefits they were
offered, and just in May received a 6% pay raise and "one-time
stipends of $500 to cover work-from-home costs." This
being Massachusetts, they likely weren't hired without knowing
someone of influence to grease the skids and pull strings for them.
"State House staff salaries
are a joke," one legislative staffer wrote in
response to an anonymous survey this spring.
"When I left the private
sector, I knew that I would be paid less than at
my previous job," another said. "What I did not
realize is that as a college educated human, I
would be struggling to pay my bills working for
the state."
Motivated in large part by
those
survey results that the Beacon
B.L.O.C. [Black State House staffers and
allies] group published in May, a pair of
lawmakers submitted a new package of legislation
aimed at improving pay and work conditions for
the hundreds of aides in House and Senate
offices.
Legislative leaders this
spring awarded staff raises and one-time
work-from-home stipends, but Rep. Erika
Uyterhoeven and Sen. Diana DiZoglio said their
colleagues need to take more substantial action
to address concerns that leave many staffers
anxious about their futures....
DiZoglio, who helped
facilitate the voluntary staff survey and shared
the responses with the News Service, and
Uyterhoeven filed five bills last week that
would set a pay floor for legislative aides,
require regular raises, accelerate staff access
to health insurance and create new liaisons to
represent the workforce.
The first bill in the
package (HD 4386) would set a minimum salary of
$55,000 for full-time House, Senate and joint
legislative employees, increase other salary
tiers accordingly, and require annual pay raises
scaled to the increase in the statewide median
household income.
They also called for
providing legislative staffers with yearly
cost-of-living adjustments (HD 4388) and
offering retroactive bonuses to offset costs
incurred during the pandemic (HD 4387)....
In May, shortly after
Beacon B.L.O.C. released its survey results,
House Speaker Ronald Mariano and Senate
President Karen Spilka announced that staff that
month had been informed of 6 percent raises and
one-time stipends of $500 to cover
work-from-home costs....
The proposed $55,000 floor
would land substantially above Boston's median
annual per-capita income of $44,690, which the
U.S. Census Bureau estimated based on data
between 2015 and 2019....
The final piece of their
proposal (HD 4390) would create a new position
in each branch to serve as a representative of
legislative staffers in employment matters....
Uyterhoeven said the
measure would be a "step in the right direction"
toward unionizing State House staffers, which
she supports but is not covered in the
legislation.
Remember that these
money grabs become the new state budget base, built
into all future budgets whether there's another
bonanza or not. One way or another taxpayers
will pay more and more to fund ever-leapfrogging
salary and benefits costs of government employees at
every level — whether
the benefit
staffers or legislators. This is how the
Beacon Hill wheel turns.
The Salem News reported on Tuesday ("Climate
pact opponents push for 2022 ballot"):
Opponents of a regional
climate pact are pushing a question for next
year’s ballot that would undermine the program,
which they say will drive up fuel prices.
A proposed question filed
for review by the attorney general's office last
Wednesday asks voters to choke off a source of
funds for the cap-and-trade program, effectively
blocking the state’s participation in the
Transportation Climate Initiative.
The referendum calls for
updating state law to declare that gas and other
fuel supplies "will not be reduced or restricted
by the imposition of any tax, fee, other revenue
generating mechanism, or market based compliance
mechanism."
Paul Craney, a spokesman
for the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, said the
pro-business group co-founded by billionaire
Rick Green supports the effort because, the
group believes, the climate pact will "force
working families and middle-class Massachusetts
to subsidize electric vehicles for the
affluent."
"The people that will feel
the pinch deserve a voice in this process,"
Craney said. "Consumers should be free to make
their own decisions, and TCI should never
restrict the amount of gasoline Massachusetts
motorists can purchase. It’s bad economics and
cruel." ...
So far, only Massachusetts
and two other states — Rhode Island and
Connecticut — have signed a "memorandum of
understanding" to join the program, though
lawmakers in Connecticut and Rhode Island still
must sign off.
The Baker administration
says Massachusetts’ 2008 Global Warming
Solutions Act gives the governor authority to
ratify the agreement without the Legislature.
Strangely, a Lowell Sun
editorial last Sunday ("Can you ID
what questions will make 2022 ballot?") was
ambivalent about the proposed ballot question,
writing:
. . . Some ballot bids seem
unnecessary, like the proposed ballot question
submitted by the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance
that would rescind the Transportation and
Climate Initiative, a pact signed in 2020 by the
governors of three New England states —
Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island —
and the mayor of Washington, D.C., aimed at
reducing transportation pollution by taxing its
source.
Promoted as a measure with
wide regional support, that enthusiasm waned
over time, from the 12 states supposedly ready
to join that compact to the paltry three – and
D.C. – that ultimately did.
Better to let it just die a
flawed policy death.
The Lowell Sun
editorial board has been around long enough and
usually on the right side to know better than that,
I would think. Nothing on Beacon Hill is more
permanent than a bad idea that soaks taxpayers —
especially when legislators can wash their hands of
any dirt and pass the blame on to another.
When was the last time those in power ever let their
desires be sidetracked by public opposition or
support? Gov. Baker's jihad-like intransigence
on imposing his TCI boondoggle upon Massachusetts
motorists has displayed no bounds. If he has
to drag Massachusetts residents along alone with no other
state participating, I wonder what makes The Sun so
confident he won't?
The State House News Service reported
on Wednesday ("Diehl: Emissions Pact Just 'Another
TAX On The People'"):
Republican gubernatorial
candidate Geoff Diehl continues to take the
fight to Gov. Charles Baker, who hasn't said yet
if he'll seek a third term.
In a new campaign missive,
Diehl on Wednesday highlighted his differences
with the Republican governor on the
Transportation Climate Initiative, an effort led
by Baker to create a regional compact of states
that would cap harmful transportation emissions
but also lead to an increase in gas prices.
"TCI may be sold to you by
the Administration as a 'fee' to energy
retailers but is nothing more than another TAX
on the people," Diehl wrote. "Commuting costs
will increase, food and goods that need to be
transported will go up, and even your property
taxes will reflect the increased cost to
municipalities for the fleets they operate –
Police cars, fire trucks and ambulances and
school buses."
The ballot question's
sponsor and CLT's ally, Massachusetts Fiscal
Alliance, has gone on the campaign offensive even
before signatures collection begins. The State
House News Service reported on Friday ("Mass.
Fiscal Concerned About Enviro. League Campaign Ads"):
The Massachusetts Fiscal
Alliance on Friday asked state and federal
regulators to investigate Environmental League
of Massachusetts social media advertisements in
support of municipal candidates, filing a new
complaint after the state Office of Campaign and
Political Finance previously found the
environmental group's ads complied with state
law.
MassFiscal, a right-leaning
group, submitted letters to OCPF and to the
Internal Revenue Service alleging that ELM
violated political spending restrictions by
delivering Facebook advertisements, paid for by
ELM's Action Fund Independent Expenditure
Political Action Committee, through the Facebook
page for ELM's main 501(c)(3) non-profit
organization....
"Campaign finance and
charitable IRS rules should be followed, even by
ELM. When you have the assets of a charitable
organization being used for such overt election
activities, it essentially amounts to taxpayers
subsidizing their election message," MassFiscal
spokesperson Paul Craney said in a statement.
"For these five municipal elections, none of the
election expenses were disclosed. The rules
exist for a reason and should be strictly
followed by all."
Putting the opposition
on the defensive, sending an early
shot across their bow, is a good strategy. It
will put them on notice that ballot campaign
spending will be monitored and quickly challenged
legally when necessary.
"The U.S. Census Bureau's Thursday
release of data from its 2020 count tracked a 7.4 percent population
increase in both Massachusetts and the country as a whole over the
decade. [Secretary of State William] Galvin, the state's Census
overseer, said dramatic growth in cities and other changes means
significant adjustments lie ahead for Congressional and state
legislative districts," the State House News Service reported in its
Weekly Roundup on Friday:
The exact shapes and
boundaries of those districts will be left in
the hands of lawmakers, but uneven growth points
to the possibility of larger districts out west,
where Berkshire and Franklin counties lost
residents, and more compact or shifted districts
in the eastern part of the state, where large
cities got bigger.
Boston, Galvin forecast,
could gain another seat in the state House of
Representatives.
It's amazing to me that
Massachusetts saw growth over the past decade
despite the exodus of the productive. That the
7.4 percent increase is centered in large cities
likely tells the story, and explains why Galvin was
so focused on counting every immigrant in the state,
legal or otherwise.
Hope springs eternal
— at least among the Retailers
Association of Massachusetts. From my experience with CLT's
successful income tax rollback ballot question that took twenty
years to finally implement all I can say is, if not now don't hold
your breath. It takes a long time for hell to freeze over.
In its Advances - Week of Aug. 15, 2021 the
State House News Service reported on Friday:
Vacationing legislators
next week can spend time checking their emails
and mulling potential changes to their district
boundaries now that 2020 Census data is in.
The summer recess is in
full swing and Massachusetts is hurtling in the
direction of full employment, with historic cash
surpluses stemming from unbudgeted tax revenues
and the showering of federal aid upon the state.
The state's falling jobless rate sits at 4.9
percent with an update scheduled for Friday, and
billions more may be coming from Washington if
the U.S. House follows the Senate's lead and
approves a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill.
Despite the relative
riches, the Legislature broke for August without
voting on Gov. Charlie Baker's proposed
two-month sales tax holiday, and taxpayers
instead will settle for this weekend's two-day
suspension of the 6.25 percent sales tax.
"The Governor understands
that our state is sitting on a lot of money, and
that putting some of those dollars back into
discretionary spending by our consumers and
taxpayers, rather than leaving all the spending
decisions to Beacon Hill, will lead to better
results for our economic recovery," Retailers
Association of Massachusetts President Jon Hurst
said on Friday. "If not now, perhaps later this
year for a taxpayer break? And perhaps there are
other ideas we should discuss to reward our
taxpayers, and incent our consumers to invest
back in our local economy."
The Legislature
possesses the entire $10 Billion-plus in excess
revenue. The Legislature does not share with
those who earned it.
It demands more, more, always more from productive
taxpayers. Jon Hurst needs to merely look at
the Legislature's grabbing of the successful 2000
charitable deduction ballot question, overwhelmingly
mandated by the voters but nonetheless put on freeze
for now over two decades. Jon do not hold your
breath. The Legislature does not share its
bounty. What's theirs is theirs; what's yours
is theirs as well whenever they want to take however
much of it.
Very little if anything stands in
Beacon Hill's
way.
|
 |
 |
|
Chip Ford
Executive Director |
|
|
The Lowell
Sun
Monday, August 9, 2021
A Lowell Sun editorial
With eye on $2B prize, Dems write off needy charities
So, Democrats are the heartless skinflints and Republicans
the bleeding hearts?
That seems to be the case in Massachusetts, if you read into
the latest House rejection of the charitable donation
deduction.
More than two decades after voters approved that tax break,
state reps sustained their previous decision to postpone
that option by overriding Gov. Charlie Baker’s veto.
House Speaker Ronald Mariano called the vote “consistent”
with the Legislature’s decision to delay the tax deduction
for one year, which a perplexed Baker said flies in the face
of the state’s enviable financial situation.
Through mid-June, the Department of Revenue had collected at
least $34.457 billion — $5.367 billion more than the Baker
administration’s most recent estimate for the full 12-month
fiscal year and $3.3 billion more than the prepandemic
estimate of $31.15 billion in tax revenue for fiscal 2021.
That’s on top of more than $5 billion in American Rescue
Plan Act funds the state’s sitting on.
That trend has continued in the new fiscal year. July’s tax
receipts totaled more than $2.25 billion, beating last
July’s haul by 5%.
“Yes, the revenue picture is rosy, but it’s not certain. It
doesn’t mean no, just not now,” warned Rep. Mark Cusack, a
Braintree Democrat and House chair of the Committee on
Revenue.
With the House vote, the Legislature approved delaying the
tax-deduction implementation until Jan. 1, 2023.
Worth an estimated $64 million in the current budget and
$300 million annually, Baker vetoed delaying the deduction
by insisting “the combination of strong state revenues and
serious needs facing nonprofits and charitable organizations
necessitates this tax deduction’s going into place.”
All 30 Republicans — plus four Democrats and the House’s
only independent — sided with the governor, while 124
members of the majority party voted to override the veto.
So, what’s the reason for Democrat lawmakers’ reluctance to
inject unquestionably needed funds into the state’s
nonprofit community, which has taken a considerable
financial hit during this prolonged coronavirus pandemic?
House Minority Leader Brad Jones — intentionally or
inadvertently — signaled one timely explanation for
Democrats’ unwillingness to approve that tax break.
Jones reminded lawmakers they’re “on the precipice” of an
election in 2022 when voters will be asked by the
Legislature to approve an income surtax on millionaires with
the promise that the $2 billion in expected new revenue will
be spent on education and transportation.
“I think it is the perfect point in time to say to the
voters who overwhelmingly passed this in 2000, we’re finally
going to live up the commitment, to the demand you made as
voters,” said Jones, a North Reading Republican.
“If you want those same voters to believe you that that’s
what this Legislature is going to do, then you should
absolutely vote to restore this tax deduction,” Jones said.
However, Democrats’ support for that charitable deduction
could surely be seen as a sign that the commonwealth’s
overflowing treasury can easily withstand that estimated
$300 million hit to its bottom line.
And if that’s the case, why should voters in the 2022
statewide elections approve that 4% surcharge of
individuals’ incomes exceeding $1 million — overwhelming
backed by Democrats — when the state’s awash in cash?
Why not just remove that potential impediment by delaying
the charitable-deduction decision until 2023, after that
surcharge vote?
Aside from the fact that millionaires’ tax will deprive
charitable organizations of their prime private-donation
source, politically, it makes perfect sense for Democrats
salivating over that $2 billion annually they’ll siphon from
the state’s entrepreneurial and job-creating class.
That’s more than worth the short-term hit to their
historically socially conscious reputation.
Since its passage by 72% of voters in 2000, taxpayers have
only been able to take advantage of the charitable tax
deduction once.
That’s how it will remain — until at least 2023.
Pioneer
Institute
Monday, July 26, 2021
Public Statement on the MA Legislature’s Blanket Pension
Giveaway
by Editorial Staff
Beacon Hill just put on full display what happens when it is
awash in money.
On its face, House Bill 2808, otherwise called “An Act
relative to providing a COVID-19 retirement credit to
essential public workers,” sounds reasonable. It calls for
adding three years of additional retirement credit to state
“employees who have volunteered to work or have been
required to work at their respective worksites or any other
worksite outside of their personal residences during the
COVID-19 state of emergency…”
But upon reading the brief bill, it quickly becomes clear
that this legislation is irresponsible in the extreme.
Written so broadly, which public employees aren’t entitled
to the benefit?
A closer look shows that the bill defines “employee” as “a
person employed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts”
including “its political subdivisions…” As such it also
applies to employees of Massachusetts’ municipalities.
H.2808 would be a massive unfunded mandate for cities and
towns.
And it doesn’t apply just to state and municipal workers who
had to actually go into work during the pandemic; they must
only have “volunteered to work… at their respective
worksites or any worksite outside of their personal
residence.” Employees who went in for a single day would
also qualify. So do employees who worked from home but one
day when the internet was down went to a family member’s
home to work. (They meet the provision that you did your job
from a “worksite outside of [your] personal residence.”)
Administrators, accountants, techies, teachers, finance
officers, grant writers, trash collectors and all those paid
with public dollars are potentially in line for the benefit.
As currently written, state legislators are eligible to take
advantage of the bill. More than half of the Legislature has
signed on to H.2808. Support spans the political spectrum.
The bill may provide a jump in pension benefits for those
employed during the pandemic who have already retired.
How much will it cost?
At a recent hearing before the Legislature’s Joint Committee
on Public Service, the committee’s co-chair, Rep. Ken
Gordon, asked H.2808’s House sponsor, Rep. Jonathan Zlotnick
of Gardner, whether any analysis had been done on the bill’s
fiscal impact. Astonishingly, Zlotnick responded: “The short
answer is we don’t have a final number as we sit here
today.”
To get a sense of the bill’s impact, Pioneer Institute did
an analysis of its effect on a single state employee – UMass
President Marty Meehan. Assuming Meehan retires at the end
of his current contract in 2025, we project that his annual
pension would rise from $287,720 to $335,673 – a $47,953
increase – if H.2808 becomes law. According to actuarial
tables, Meehan’s lifetime pension benefit would increase by
$790,750.
Pioneer estimates that the bill’s cost would be in the
billions of dollars. As of this May, the state pension fund,
state Teachers’ Retirement System and the Boston Teachers
Retirement system were underfunded by a combined $44
billion. Annual payments to the systems are scheduled to
rise from the current $3.1 billion to nearly $12.4 billion
over the next 15 years, and would be even higher under
H.2808. The bill would also further burden over 100 local
pension funds in the Commonwealth, many of which are already
woefully underfunded.
What’s next?
The Commonwealth is currently sitting on nearly $10 billion
in state surplus and federal COVID relief money. Few would
object to using some of that money to benefit state
employees who truly put themselves in harm’s way during the
pandemic.
The Legislature should demonstrate responsibility and use
part of the money to shore up pension funds so the state can
fully cover existing commitments to its employees, and pay
down what is the highest per capita debt of any state. Such
debt reduction could free up hundreds of millions of the
over $3.5 billion Massachusetts currently spends each year
for debt service.
There are other worthy investments that we should be making,
including serious consideration of Governor Baker’s
proposals to increase home ownership in economically
disadvantaged areas of the state.
H.2808, unfortunately, takes us in exactly the opposite
direction. It is absurdly overbroad and solely focused on
the public sector. Remember that the public sector did not
see employment decrease in any manner similar to the private
sector during the pandemic. As such, it is a slap in the
face of the tens of thousands of private sector employees
who put themselves in harm’s way — or often saw their lives
turned upside down by government restrictions, some of which
were reasonable, others of which were not at all based in
science.
H.2808 is also an abject lesson to taxpayers: This is
what happens when the Legislature has access to billions of
dollars in excess tax revenue and emergency funds.
https://pioneerinstitute.org/better_government/public-statement-on-the-massachusetts-legislatures-misguided-blanket-pension-giveaway/
State House News
Service
Wednesday, August 11, 2021
New Bill Would Set $55,000 Wage Floor For Legislative Staff
DiZoglio-Uyterhoeven File Suite of New Proposals
By Chris Lisinski
"State House staff salaries are a joke," one legislative
staffer wrote in response to an anonymous survey this
spring.
"When I left the private sector, I knew that I would be paid
less than at my previous job," another said. "What I did not
realize is that as a college educated human, I would be
struggling to pay my bills working for the state."
Motivated in large part by those
survey results that the Beacon B.L.O.C. [Black State
House staffers and allies] group published in May, a pair of
lawmakers submitted a new package of legislation aimed at
improving pay and work conditions for the hundreds of aides
in House and Senate offices.
Legislative leaders this spring awarded staff raises and
one-time work-from-home stipends, but Rep. Erika Uyterhoeven
and Sen. Diana DiZoglio said their colleagues need to take
more substantial action to address concerns that leave many
staffers anxious about their futures.
"The Legislature constantly talks about diversity, equity
and inclusion while at the same time maintaining policies
within its own institution that block those from low-income
backgrounds and communities of color in particular from
being able to gain access," DiZoglio, a Methuen Democrat,
said in an interview.
DiZoglio, who helped facilitate the voluntary staff survey
and shared the responses with the News Service, and
Uyterhoeven filed five bills last week that would set a pay
floor for legislative aides, require regular raises,
accelerate staff access to health insurance and create new
liaisons to represent the workforce.
The first bill in the package (HD 4386) would set a minimum
salary of $55,000 for full-time House, Senate and joint
legislative employees, increase other salary tiers
accordingly, and require annual pay raises scaled to the
increase in the statewide median household income.
They also called for providing legislative staffers with
yearly cost-of-living adjustments (HD 4388) and offering
retroactive bonuses to offset costs incurred during the
pandemic (HD 4387).
Uyterhoeven said lower pay poses a disproportionately large
barrier to current and prospective staffers of color, who
often do not have the same degree of access to "generational
wealth" or "safety nets" -- such as supplemental income from
a parent -- that white employees enjoy.
"Is this opportunity for becoming a staffer in the State
House something that's actually an option for everyone?" the
Somerville Democrat said. "If it's such low pay, or if it's
such an uncertain work environment, that's something that a
lot of individuals and particularly candidates of color
can't be eligible for."
In May, shortly after Beacon B.L.O.C. released its survey
results, House Speaker Ronald Mariano and Senate President
Karen Spilka announced that staff that month had been
informed of 6 percent raises and one-time stipends of $500
to cover work-from-home costs.
"I know that this year has been difficult," Spilka wrote to
staff in a May 11 letter. "I encourage all of you to speak
with your manager, my Chief of Staff Mary Anne Padien, or
the Senate's Human Resources team if you need assistance in
any way. I also encourage you to pay attention to and make
time for your mental health."
Asked for comment on the new legislation, a spokesperson for
House Speaker Ronald Mariano said the chamber's 2018 rules
package formalized the structure for the House's independent
human resources department. The spokesperson added that the
House has provided biannual cost-of-living adjustments since
2012 "with a brief delay this past session to account for
the unstable revenue picture at the time."
The proposed $55,000 floor would represent a raise for most
of the Legislature's current staffers.
In 2020, House, Senate and joint General Court full-time
employees across all positions had a median annual salary of
$51,000, according to a News Service analysis of CTHRU state
payroll records. Of the 795 individuals listed as full-time
legislative employees last year, 485 -- about 61 percent --
were paid at an annual rate of less than $55,000, the
comptroller's payroll data show.
The proposed $55,000 floor would land substantially above
Boston's median annual per-capita income of $44,690, which
the U.S. Census Bureau estimated based on data between 2015
and 2019.
Staff sizes and responsibilities vary across different
legislative offices. Many representatives have only a single
legislative aide, a role that Beacon B.L.O.C. said typically
has a salary around $43,000.
Other offices also employ staffers dedicated to constituents
services or research. Some higher-up employees in the House
or Senate, such as chief legal counsel or chief of staff for
lawmakers in leadership, earn salaries in the high
five-figure to low six-figure range.
All 160 representatives and 40 senators received the same
base pay rate of $66,257 in 2020, but lawmakers also earn
stipends based on leadership and committee positions that
substantially increase their overall earnings.
Among lawmakers who remained in office for the entire year
in 2020, the median total compensation was $93,553 for
representatives and $120,633 for senators, according to the
payroll data.
DiZoglio and Uyterhoeven both said that increasing staffer
pay would help the Legislature better accomplish its work,
both by ensuring that voices from marginalized backgrounds
are involved in policymaking and by retaining institutional
knowledge.
"I believe in all of this as a moral, racial, economic
justice issue, but it's in our own interests as state reps
and people who are in this role to pay our staff more,"
Uyterhoeven said. "I worked in the private sector, and there
is a lot of documented evidence and research studies that
show the tenure of your employee at a job really impacts the
quality of the work that you're able to do, the brain drain
and the burnout."
Another bill DiZoglio and Uyterhoeven filed (HD 4389) would
eliminate the waiting period that new hires in the
Legislature must undergo before their employer-sponsored
health insurance coverage begins. DiZoglio said that span
typically lasts 60 days, though some employees have reported
waiting as long as three months.
Access to insurance featured as a major theme in the Beacon
B.L.O.C. survey, with more than 30 percent of respondents
saying that the mandatory delay impacted them. Several
described facing substantial costs for COBRA or
Massachusetts Health Connector coverage during the interim,
and some said they paid out-of-pocket for injuries or health
issues while waiting for their State House insurance to take
effect.
"This was actually something that was raised to us with a
higher level of urgency during the pandemic because you had
staffers beginning employment during a pandemic concerned
about not having health care coverage," DiZoglio said.
"That's simply unacceptable. Our staff should not have to
worry."
The final piece of their proposal (HD 4390) would create a
new position in each branch to serve as a representative of
legislative staffers in employment matters.
Under the current system, DiZoglio and Uyterhoeven said,
each individual lawmaker can hire their own staff but
decisions about pay and benefits lie with the House speaker
and Senate president.
Senators previously set pay for their own staff in
consultation with leadership, but a Spilka spokesperson said
the Senate changed the practice to comply with the Equal Pay
Act and is now implementing a system to ensure staff receive
comparable pay for comparable work.
Uyterhoeven said the measure would be a "step in the right
direction" toward unionizing State House staffers, which she
supports but is not covered in the legislation.
A Mariano spokesperson said the House's internal rules
package provides resources to an independent human resources
department. The 2018 rules update standardized some
practices such as implementing a uniform leave policy. It
also created a new employee engagement officer position and
an equal opportunity officer, the latter of which is vacant
after a resignation.
During debate of its fiscal year 2022 state budget, the
Senate rejected DiZoglio amendments similar to the
standalone pay legislation but adopted one requiring the
Group Insurance Commission to study how new state employees
are impacted by the waiting period. House-Senate negotiators
dropped that language from the final budget.
The Salem
News
Tuesday, August 10, 2021
Climate pact opponents push for 2022 ballot
By Christian M. Wade
Opponents of a regional climate pact are pushing a question
for next year’s ballot that would undermine the program,
which they say will drive up fuel prices.
A proposed question filed for review by the attorney
general's office last Wednesday asks voters to choke off a
source of funds for the cap-and-trade program, effectively
blocking the state’s participation in the Transportation
Climate Initiative.
The referendum calls for updating state law to declare that
gas and other fuel supplies "will not be reduced or
restricted by the imposition of any tax, fee, other revenue
generating mechanism, or market based compliance mechanism."
Paul Craney, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Fiscal
Alliance, said the pro-business group co-founded by
billionaire Rick Green supports the effort because, the
group believes, the climate pact will "force working
families and middle-class Massachusetts to subsidize
electric vehicles for the affluent."
"The people that will feel the pinch deserve a voice in this
process," Craney said. "Consumers should be free to make
their own decisions, and TCI should never restrict the
amount of gasoline Massachusetts motorists can purchase.
It’s bad economics and cruel."
Another proponent is former state Rep. Geoff Diehl, a
Whitman Republican who led a successful ballot campaign in
2014 to repeal a law tying the state's gas tax to inflation.
Diehl is seeking the GOP’s nomination for governor in 2022,
which means he’ll challenge Gov. Charlie Baker should the
two-term governor decide to run again.
Baker is a primary proponent of the TCI consortium and has
tied the state's participation to efforts to reduce carbon
emissions and alleviate traffic congestion.
The plan calls for cutting motor vehicle emissions by at
least 26% within the next 11 years. It targets gasoline and
diesel fuel consumption, which account for about 40% of
regional emissions that scientists say contribute to climate
change.
As part of the TCI pact, fuel suppliers who travel across
state lines to make deliveries will be taxed on emissions
above limits that have yet to be set. Suppliers are expected
to pass on those costs to consumers.
States participating in the program will get a portion of
the tax to use for transportation projects.
TCI’s proponents say the plan will cap increases in gas
prices at 5 cents per gallon in the first year, but
opponents say it's unclear what will happen next. Opponents
say the deal ultimately will hurt consumers while doing
little to reduce emissions.
TCI supporters have also pushed back on claims, now included
in the proposed ballot question, that the pact will lead to
fuel shortages. Supporters accuse opponents of intentionally
misrepresenting federal energy data.
To be sure, the regional climate initiative is running low
on momentum. A majority of the 11 Northeast and Mid-Atlantic
states that were part of the original agreement have not
committed to it.
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, says his
state won't join.
So far, only Massachusetts and two other states — Rhode
Island and Connecticut — have signed a "memorandum of
understanding" to join the program, though lawmakers in
Connecticut and Rhode Island still must sign off.
The Baker administration says Massachusetts’ 2008 Global
Warming Solutions Act gives the governor authority to ratify
the agreement without the Legislature.
A group of Republican lawmakers filed an unsuccessful bill
last year that would have forced a vote in the Legislature.
If the ballot question is certified, supporters still have
numerous hurdles to clear, not least of which is gathering
about 80,000 signatures of registered voters by Nov. 17.
— Christian M. Wade covers
the Massachusetts Statehouse for North of Boston Media
Group’s newspapers and websites.
The Lowell Sun
Sunday, August 8, 2021
A Lowell Sun editorial
Can you ID what questions will make 2022 ballot?
One way to take the pulse of the state’s political climate
is to observe the issues raised in proposed referendum
questions for the commonwealth’s electorate to consider.
Massachusetts voters next year likely will be asked to
decide a handful of the more than two dozen proposed ballot
questions submitted by Wednesday’s deadline.
That’s because only a few will make it through the laborious
signature gathering — and legal vetting — process required
to secure a spot on the ballot.
Of the 30 petitions filed, 28 are proposed laws for the 2022
statewide ballot, with an additional two constitutional
amendments for the 2024 election, according to Attorney
General Maura Healey’s office.
Those two constitutional amendments do not include the
millionaires’ tax proposal, which went through a separate
legislative process to get on the ballot.
The questions encompass a wish-list gamut, from protecting
whales and bringing back “happy hours,” to a measure that
would require voters to produce IDs at polling locations.
A companion question to voter ID would mandate that all
votes cast in the state be hand-counted.
In some instances, it’s fairly easy to recognize the forces
behind certain initiatives. One that would limit the number
of alcohol licenses any one company or individual can hold
certainly has the support of package-store owners and
associated trade associations, which fear that statewide
chains like Cumberland Farms will use their scale to
undercut their bottom line.
However, our hands-down favorite goes to the measure that
would make it a felony to target an individual’s ability to
make a living due to postings on social media, something
that virtually everyone who regretted hitting that “send”
button could support.
While we do agree that questionable statements made by an
ignorant or impetuous youth shouldn’t be held against that
person decades later, we can’t conceive of a law that could
successfully protect someone from themselves.
Some ballot bids seem unnecessary, like the proposed ballot
question submitted by the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance that
would rescind the Transportation and Climate Initiative, a
pact signed in 2020 by the governors of three New England
states — Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island — and
the mayor of Washington, D.C., aimed at reducing
transportation pollution by taxing its source.
Promoted as a measure with wide regional support, that
enthusiasm waned over time, from the 12 states supposedly
ready to join that compact to the paltry three – and D.C. –
that ultimately did.
Better to let it just die a flawed policy death.
Our vote for the most controversial, high-profile question
goes to that voter ID mandate.
It drew the enthusiastic support of embattled state
Republican Party Chairman Jim Lyons, an avowed supporter of
former President Donald Trump, which immediately gave it a
third-rail dimension for state Democratic Party activists.
But what about average voters, especially that vast majority
who claim to be independent of either party? Is it a voting
impediment, specifically for minorities, as progressives
claim?
For the record, according to Ballotpedia.org, which bills
itself as a digital encyclopedia of American politics and
elections, the majority of states require voter IDs of
various sorts. Twenty require photo IDs, while in 15 other
states, a nonphoto ID will suffice.
As for other democracies? France, Germany, Iceland, Norway,
Northern Ireland and Switzerland are among those that
require some form of voter ID, hardly a repressive bunch.
We’ve already expressed our opposition to happy hours and
the millionaires’ tax questions, which proposes a 4% surtax
on the portion of an individual’s annual income that exceeds
$1 million, with the expected $2 billion in annual revenue
generated to be used for education and transportation.
It will be instructive to see which of these petitions meet
the signature requirement and pass legal muster.
When that’s known, we invite supporters and detractors of
these referendum questions to state their case with letters
to the editor, the guidelines of which can be found at the
bottom of this page.
State House News
Service
Wednesday, August 11, 2021
Diehl: Emissions Pact Just “Another TAX On The People”
By Michael P. Norton
Republican gubernatorial candidate Geoff Diehl continues to
take the fight to Gov. Charles Baker, who hasn't said yet if
he'll seek a third term.
In a new campaign missive, Diehl on Wednesday highlighted
his differences with the Republican governor on the
Transportation Climate Initiative, an effort led by Baker to
create a regional compact of states that would cap harmful
transportation emissions but also lead to an increase in gas
prices.
"TCI may be sold to you by the Administration as a 'fee' to
energy retailers but is nothing more than another TAX on the
people," Diehl wrote. "Commuting costs will increase, food
and goods that need to be transported will go up, and even
your property taxes will reflect the increased cost to
municipalities for the fleets they operate – Police cars,
fire trucks and ambulances and school buses."
Diehl highlighted his support for a potential 2022 ballot
question that seeks to torpedo the still-developing
multi-state compact. TCI supporters say it is critical to
help the state meet its greenhouse gas emissions reduction
requirements and finally address a large sector that is a
main emissions driver.
Voters in 2014 overturned a state law indexing the state gas
tax to inflation, a repeal effort that Diehl led and which
he noted was backed by Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito, who
is also a potential candidate for governor next year. The
subject line of Diehl's latest jab: "Reject Baker's New Gas
Tax."
Baker is scheduled to return Wednesday evening from a family
trip to California. The governor has repeatedly been asked
whether he'll run for a third term and consistently said
that decision will eventually follow discussions with his
family.
Baker enjoys strong support among independent voters and
even Democrats, but some Republicans feel he leans too far
to the left. MassGOP Chairman Jim Lyons, who often split
with his GOP colleagues before he was unseated by a
Democrat, is among those leading the push for more
conservative party leadership.
"It's crystal clear to me that President Trump and Charlie
Baker don't look at the world the same way and [Trump] made
it perfectly clear to me that he believes that the direction
that we're moving the party in is the direction that we
ought to be moving it in," Lyons told Howie Carr last week,
after meeting with Trump in New York. "Yeah, I don't think
that President Trump is a fan of Governor Baker's."
Asked whether he thought Trump would campaign for Diehl,
Lyons said that as party chair he can't get involved "in
those kinds of situations, but my feelings from the
president is that he would certainly like to see an exciting
race up here." Lyons went on to say that Trump "likes Geoff
Diehl a lot."
State House News
Service
Friday, August 13, 2021
Mass. Fiscal Concerned About Enviro. League Campaign Ads
By Chris Lisinski
The Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance on Friday asked state and
federal regulators to investigate Environmental League of
Massachusetts social media advertisements in support of
municipal candidates, filing a new complaint after the state
Office of Campaign and Political Finance previously found
the environmental group's ads complied with state law.
MassFiscal, a right-leaning group, submitted letters to OCPF
and to the Internal Revenue Service alleging that ELM
violated political spending restrictions by delivering
Facebook advertisements, paid for by ELM's Action Fund
Independent Expenditure Political Action Committee, through
the Facebook page for ELM's main 501(c)(3) non-profit
organization.
The latest complaints involve advertisements from the spring
supporting five candidates for municipal office: Jim
Satterthwaite and Marlena Bita of Reading, Laura Burnes of
Hingham, and Christopher Hardy and Simon Frechette of
Marblehead. MassFiscal said the "potential total value" of
the expenditures was $5,296 and that none of that spending
had been disclosed to OCPF or municipal officials.
"Campaign finance and charitable IRS rules should be
followed, even by ELM. When you have the assets of a
charitable organization being used for such overt election
activities, it essentially amounts to taxpayers subsidizing
their election message," MassFiscal spokesperson Paul Craney
said in a statement. "For these five municipal elections,
none of the election expenses were disclosed. The rules
exist for a reason and should be strictly followed by all."
Last year, OCPF completed its review of a similar complaint
alleging that ELM's independent expenditure PAC paid for ads
supporting candidates that then appeared on the
organization's main non-profit Facebook page. The regulatory
agency concluded in December that "there is no reason to
believe ELM IEPAC or ELM violated the Massachusetts campaign
finance law."
"The Environmental League of MA, the ELM Action Fund, and
the ELM Action Fund IE PAC continue to follow the law
regarding all political activity while fighting for policies
that meet the urgency of the climate crisis we are in," ELM
spokesperson Casey Bowers said in a statement on Friday.
State House News
Service
Friday, August 13, 2021
Weekly Roundup - There’s More Of Us
Recap and analysis of the week in state government
By Katie Lannan
Last August, Gov. Charlie Baker's test-or-quarantine travel
restrictions meant many people were sticking close to home
for their summer trips, or left trying to discern the
protocols they'd need to follow for, say, a quick
border-crossing jaunt to Narragansett Beach.
This year, things are different. Vacation season is back in
earnest on Beacon Hill and elsewhere, complete with a
heatwave, quiet halls at the State House (that is, even
quieter than still-closed building has been for months) and,
for much of last weekend, Acting Governor Bill Galvin.
Baker's weeklong family trip to California overlapped with
Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito's own weekend visit to Pennsylvania,
leaving the secretary of state officially running the show
for a couple days until Polito returned.
Before the week was out, Galvin would have the chance to
deploy one of his duties that's even rarer than stepping
into the acting governor role -- unveiling the state's
updated population numbers post-Census.
The U.S. Census Bureau's Thursday release of data from its
2020 count tracked a 7.4 percent population increase in both
Massachusetts and the country as a whole over the decade.
Galvin, the state's Census overseer, said dramatic growth in
cities and other changes means significant adjustments lie
ahead for Congressional and state legislative districts.
The exact shapes and boundaries of those districts will be
left in the hands of lawmakers, but uneven growth points to
the possibility of larger districts out west, where
Berkshire and Franklin counties lost residents, and more
compact or shifted districts in the eastern part of the
state, where large cities got bigger.
Boston, Galvin forecast, could gain another seat in the
state House of Representatives.
Before that can happen, though, the city's voters will
choose their next mayor. With about a month to go before the
preliminary election, endorsement announcements have been
swirling as new ads hit screens and candidates direct their
jabs at City Hall.
Acting Mayor Kim Janey instituted a new policy that will
require the city's 18,000 workers to get vaccinated against
COVID-19 or submit to weekly testing, gradually phasing in
the mandate by mid-October.
Though she's panned the idea of vaccine passports like New
York City is pursuing, Janey's been hinting for a few weeks
that this move was coming, and other mayoral candidates were
quick to knock its pace.
City Councilor Andrea Campbell called it "the type of
decision that should take hours or days - not weeks," and
John Barros labeled it "overdue," saying Janey should have
put the rule in place when City Hall employees returned to
in-person work. Councilor Michelle Wu said the city needs
"more than half measures," calling for vaccine regulations
for spaces like gyms, salons and restaurants.
No one knows what COVID-19 dynamics will look like in 2022,
but the virus and state government's handling of it is also
an issue on the winding campaign trail to next year's
governor's race.
Two Democratic gubernatorial hopefuls are pushing for
changes in how the state communicates information about the
pandemic.
Danielle Allen wants to see Baker create an alert system
modeled after weather advisories that would monitor risk
levels, triggering changes like more testing or mask
mandates in schools if infections hit certain levels in a
particular area. Former state Sen. Ben Downing called for
"Beacon Hill to begin the process of auditing the Baker
Administration's Department of Public Health for their
omissions in reporting on hospitalization data by age, race,
and other demographics."
The third Democrat in the field so far, Sen. Sonia Chang-Díaz,
collected endorsements from eight of her colleagues in the
Legislature and four progressive municipal officials from
Boston, Worcester and Lawrence.
While lawmakers take their own version of a summer break
this month, several still have their eyes on the looming
back-to-school season -- and on the Baker administration's
decision to recommend, but not require, in-classroom masking
for students in kindergarten through sixth grade,
unvaccinated older students and unvaccinated adults in
schools.
Public Health Committee co-chairs Rep. Marjorie Decker and
Sen. Jo Comerford, who have custody of a bill that would
require universal masking in schools, wrote in The Boston
Globe this week that Baker should put a stronger school mask
mandate in place. And the sponsor of that bill, Sen. Becca
Rausch, has been collecting comments from parents and others
who want to see students and their teachers mask up this
fall.
As various school committees and boards of health vote on
their own policies, it's becoming clear that -- at least for
now -- mask and vaccine rules will be the domain of
individual municipalities and employers.
"I think communities are doing exactly what we hoped and
anticipated that they would do, which is making the decision
that makes the most sense for them," Baker said Thursday,
visiting digital learning company Cengage in his first
public event since before his California trip.
The governor touted the state's high vaccination rates and
forthcoming clinics set up with school departments, saying
he expects some communities will likely have "north of 80
percent of their kids at the seven to 12 grade level"
vaccinated by the time school starts.
For younger students who still aren't vaccine-eligible,
Baker said he anticipates an emergency-use authorization for
a vaccine at some point in the fall. The administration's
"strong recommendation" that kids in grades K-6 wear masks
reflects the fact that the shots aren't available to them,
he said.
"We've also made our pool testing program available, which
was a big success last spring -- about 1,000 schools
participated in it -- we're making that program available to
any school district, and any school in Massachusetts, public
school, that wants to participate," he said. "And I think
you put all those things together, and we are perfectly
positioned to make sure that kids and adults will be safe
when they go back to school, and we fully expect everybody
to be in person."
The latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
guidance on face coverings would now have everybody in
Massachusetts -- vaccinated and unvaccinated -- wear masks
in indoor public places. That recommendation, issued late
last month, applies to counties experiencing "high" or
"substantial" COVID-19 transmission -- now the whole of
Massachusetts.
The federal eviction moratorium is also linked to those
transmission levels, so it applies across each of the
state's 14 counties.
That hasn't stopped some lawmakers from wanting to put their
own state-level ban in place. Eighty-two of 200 lawmakers
signed on to a moratorium bill that was the subject of this
week's sole committee hearing.
Holding a hearing in the middle of the traditional August
recess is atypical, and could mean the bill or related
policies might get pencilled in to the post-Labor Day
agenda.
When the fall term arrives at New England Law Boston, it'll
happen without Scott Brown at the school's helm. The former
senator and ambassador to New Zealand resigned after about
seven months as president and dean of the faculty, saying
it's time for him to re-enter the political arena.
The former Wrentham Republican now calls New Hampshire home.
Even if it's not the Bay State political arena he's seeking,
he nonetheless might have sights on its regular arenas,
bandstands, bars and theaters -- his rock cover band, Scott
Brown and the Diplomats, has a show planned at Salisbury
Beach on Saturday, and is set to hit the Wrentham Town
Common later this month.
Deal-seeking shoppers might opt for Wrentham this weekend
instead, hitting the outlets there to take advantage of the
two-day break from the state's 6.25 percent sales tax.
Baker had sought to turn the annual sales tax-holiday into a
two-month vacation, filing a bill in June that would have
extended the tax-free period throughout all of August and
September.
Legislative leaders and several other Democrats panned the
idea, leaving the bill on ice throughout the dog days of
summer. It's been before the Revenue Committee since July 1,
with a hearing not yet scheduled.
A different type of tax may be top of mind for Rep. David
Linsky. The Natick Democrat told the News Service this week
that he's on a payment plan with the Internal Revenue
Service to pay back "every dime" of his $154,000 owed in
unpaid federal income taxes and has already started to chip
away at that balance.
State House staffer income is the subject of a trio of new
bills from Rep. Erika Uyterhoeven and Sen. Diana DiZoglio.
The lawmakers' package proposes setting a minimum salary of
$55,000 for full-time legislative staffers, providing them
with yearly cost-of-living adjustments and offering
retroactive bonuses to offset pandemic-related work costs.
That proposed wage floor would represent a raise for many
staffers. As far as windfalls go, though, it would be fairly
modest compared to the influx of federal dollars the state
and cities will amass from the American Rescue Plan Act.
Mayor Janey this week announced a listening campaign to help
Boston plan how to spend about $400 million in ARPA money,
similar to the hearing process legislative budget writers
are undertaking to determine how to allocate the state's
billions.
The Ways and Means Committee's hearings started in July and
are on hold for the month, with plans to pick back up after
Labor Day. Like so much else, those spending questions will
still be there on the other side of August.
STORY OF THE WEEK: School mask debates continue to simmer as
summer vacations wind down.
State House News
Service
Friday, August 13, 2021
Advances - Week of Aug. 15, 2021
Vacationing legislators next week can spend time checking
their emails and mulling potential changes to their district
boundaries now that 2020 Census data is in.
The summer recess is in full swing and Massachusetts is
hurtling in the direction of full employment, with historic
cash surpluses stemming from unbudgeted tax revenues and the
showering of federal aid upon the state. The state's falling
jobless rate sits at 4.9 percent with an update scheduled
for Friday, and billions more may be coming from Washington
if the U.S. House follows the Senate's lead and approves a
$1.2 trillion infrastructure bill.
Despite the relative riches, the Legislature broke for
August without voting on Gov. Charlie Baker's proposed
two-month sales tax holiday, and taxpayers instead will
settle for this weekend's two-day suspension of the 6.25
percent sales tax.
"The Governor understands that our state is sitting on a lot
of money, and that putting some of those dollars back into
discretionary spending by our consumers and taxpayers,
rather than leaving all the spending decisions to Beacon
Hill, will lead to better results for our economic
recovery," Retailers Association of Massachusetts President
Jon Hurst said on Friday. "If not now, perhaps later this
year for a taxpayer break? And perhaps there are other ideas
we should discuss to reward our taxpayers, and incent our
consumers to invest back in our local economy."
While urging consumers to shop locally, Hurst said sales tax
revenues rose by an average of 8 percent per month during
the crisis due to a law that took effect in October 2019 and
enabled the state to capture and tax most out-of-state
internet sales.
Store-goers are increasingly encountering fellow shoppers
who are masked up, whether voluntarily or due to store
mandates, but the retail sector is geared up for a surge in
buying despite the continuing community spread of the
COVID-19 Delta variant, which has transmission rates moving
in the wrong direction just as schools are preparing to
welcome students back for an academic year currently
forecast for in-person learning only.
Unlike earlier in the pandemic, when he called most of the
shots, Baker during this latest surge in infections has
opted to leave the decisions on mask-wearing and vaccine
mandates to municipal officials and employers, which is
resulting in a patchwork of policies that can be confusing
to follow and may lead to uneven impacts on communities.
Storylines In Progress
... The Census data drop this week positions people and
interest groups to start lobbying for their preferred
redistricting options. Look for proposals to emerge to
increase opportunities for candidates of color to win
elected offices as the state's population grows even more
diverse
... To the extent that serious work is occurring behind the
scenes in August, it is likely centered around the
priorities for the fall session, which include allocating
the fiscal 2021 surplus, passing a voting reform bill,
considering sports wagering legislation, and redrawing
legislative and Congressional candidates, a process that
will put some voters, and perhaps candidates, into new
districts. |
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this
material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes
only. For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
Citizens for Limited Taxation ▪
PO Box 1147 ▪ Marblehead, MA 01945
▪ (781) 639-9709
BACK TO CLT
HOMEPAGE
|
